Bachelor... err... Lunch?

So, one of my coworkers, a subordinate of my ex-boss (yeah, the poor thing, may Hyne have mercy of his soul) is going to get married tomorrow. (Make that prior request double, thank you.) I knew he was going to get the noose soon, but it wasn't until last week Friday that I learned he was going to commit legal suicide tomorrow. Oh well, everybody has the right to fuck up (or not) their own life as they see it fit. Either way, well, I love the guy, so I hope he's making the right choice, and if he's not I still hope he'll be happy, and if not then I really-REALLY hope he has prepared his escape route. If not, then I can only hope and pray he has the balls to put up with it. But that's beyond the point now.

Last week, during the breakfast organized for all of us, where all of us had to bring some food, mind you, because here the only thing you get for free is more work, the director's assistant invited us to organize something like a Bachelor Party for him. It was going to be yesterday, after work at Hooters. There was the idea of doing something stupid, as in major brain damage stupid, like going to some nice place (nice for the lot of here, which for me means some traditional food, horrid troopical flower arrangements and exhorbitant prices... for fucking rice and beans. Yeah honey, count me in...), but thanks to a little pushing, giggling with the guys and casually start rooting "Hooters! Hooters!" made the idea stick. So Hooters it was. I was planning on calling my trusted and dear friend, memory of mine and partner in crime, Shimmy Gin, to meet me there, so that we met (because I haven't seen him in ages) and also to have some fun. Good fun.

An e-mail from the assistant arrived requesting us to confirm we are going to the party, in order to make the reservation and calculate the quota for the gift. ALARM! Sorry, but whenever there's a quota for a gift or an activity, I automatically out myself. I mean, I've participated in many activities like this, but ever since I've been in this area, costs are up to 10, 20 times higher than any other quota collected in any other area I've ever been, so no. I remade my plan, considered going there, but not as part of the group, but WITH Shimmy, and if we can sit on the table with the group, good, if not, hey, it's Hooters!

So I was trying to reach Shimmy, ask him out :-) when at sometime after half past eleven Andrea, Fabio's coworker, called me and asked me if I was going to Fabio's lunch. Lunch?? It was AFTER work, sometime around 5 and 5:30 pm. Who calls that lunch? Particularly at the office? Well, it seems that sometime between the e-mail and that moment they, the unphantomable They, decided to cancel Hooters (for the love of Neal Caffrey! Who the FUCKING HELL even THINKS about cancelling Hooters???), and instead organized a lunch at some third rate Mexican restaurant near by, but told basically no one, so only the initiated knew and went. Smooth, really smooth. So yeah, like the guy isn't just walking voluntarily to the gallows, but our dear coworkers even took from him the innocent, sweet pleasure of Hooters. The nerv! Also, a lot of people who wanted to go was left hanging, finding out about the change of plans from other sources, and after the deed was done.

Feeling bad, though he had nothing - to my knowledge - to feel bad about, Fabio decided to invite all those who wanted to join him yesterday, today for lunch. It doesn't really help much the fact that the Government gave us half the day off as some half-holiday since the new President takes her oath tomorrow and the old one FINALLY stops being it - how do you call that? In Spanish we call it "traspaso de poderes". Anyway, since we are Public Employees, and we happen to work in the right district, we have the day off, from noon on, which is basically in 13 minutes. A lot of my coworkers, homey little furballs as they are, run home or to their other lives, so they won't be spending any more time than needed with their coworkers, which means, this will be a reduced party to say good-bye to the last days of freedom and independence of Fabio, and again, without Hooters. Dude, I hope his isn't an omen...

One last thought: IF countries fight for their freedom and independence, and for those countries that have conquered it (basically all American countries) this day, this celebration is the most important, THEN why is it that the people in them, and in general in any country, is so willing and desperate to throw them away? Marriage is bad, Hooters is good, so don't get married, just go to Hooters. :-)